A Milestone

Baby Cyrus has turned 2 months last weekend! He's grown at such a rapid pace that I use him for weight training now.

There was a bit of a worry when Cyrus produced this weird black pepper like stools 2 days after his 2 month vaccination. He didn't have any fever and was looking and acting his normal self. We were stumped, but decided to wait and see since it was a Sunday and the clinic was closed. We found out that the vaccination can cause diarrhea but it mentioned nothing of this. Thankfully it got less and less and disappeared totally the next evening.

As you can see from the pattern, I caught the explosion 'mid-spray'

I've not been able to do a lot of thing that I used to do (Develop film? Catch a movie? Get enough sleep? Forget about it!)  All these have taken a back seat for the time being. This goes without saying, but having a baby changes everything.

I'm not complaining though. When he rewards us with such a smile, everything is worth it. In fact my wife was saying that he's growing so fast that she regrets that we can't spend more time with him because of work. That makes every second we spend with him that much more precious, even if it's watching him sleep.

East vs West

So how do you spot an East Malaysian at the KL LCCT Airport? Easy, go to the LCCT Emporium and check out the Gardenia buns section. He/she will most likely have a shopping basket full of buns.

Ok, maybe that was an over-generalization. That person could've been buying for an East Malaysian friend he/she was visiting. The first time I became aware that Gardenia don't sell their buns here was when my wife asked me to get her some Gardenia Ikan Bilis buns when I went over to KL. I also found out that the best place to get the freshest stocks is at LCCT, having spent quite some time looking around in various locations. The LCCT Emporium knows that they are catering to the East Malaysian market and makes quite a lot from this. Gardenia sells their plain bread here, but why not the others (I don't know if it's the same for Sarawak) ?  Oddly enough, I've never had the ikan bilis bun till I moved over to Sabah from PJ so maybe Gardenia knows what they are doing...

There's another thing I've missed since moving here. The KFC stores in Sabah don't offer Thai Chili Sauce (TCS) to their customers, relying instead on ketchup and normal chili.

The first few times eating KFC without TCS was terrible. I considered buying one bottle from the supermarket and bringing it with me everytime I go to KFC, but common sense told me to suck it up and deal with it. 4 years later, I can't remember how fried chicken tastes with TCS anymore... *making a mental note to eat KFC next time I go back to the peninsula*

And McD's...huh! No free refills! The first time I asked the cashier for a free refill was also my last time. I might as well have asked if her mom had a hairy chest because she would have given me the same look.

After 4 years here in Kota Kinabalu, I'm not so bothered by these minor differences in products and services offered by the big chain companies like I used to be. But hello KFC, I really really hope you will listen to what I'm saying. Ahem.

Hacking The DX Coding On The Film Canisters

Mom: So is there anything you'd like me to bring over when I visit?
Me: Hmm, ya. Whatever happened to my old film camera?

So she searched around the house and found this.

My old Olympus Mju-II. This camera accompanied me through my college and uni years and to many places in Europe. It's a reliable old friend. There was one problem with it though, it automatically sets the ISO based on the DX coding on the film canister. That may be alright for normal photography but a massive inconvenience when shooting with redscale or black and white films.

So how to get around this?

Changing from 400 to 1600

Fool the camera by changing the DX coding. The film at the bottom is at normal 400 speed and the film at the top has had its paint scratched so the camera reads it as a 1600 film instead. Probably the best thing about this is that the Olympus is such an easy camera to handle that I can be in the pictures more often.

With available window light and spot metering on the Mju-II

Darkroom Fun

Following up from my last post, I tried my hand at developing my own black and white film. The very first time, I had a few issues to iron out, like getting all the chemicals at the right temperature (20 deg c) before starting. I tried putting ice in a basin but it wasn't getting anywhere near that figure, so I just stuck them all in a freezer till it dropped. Thanks to the timer from the Massive Dev Chart App on the iPhone, once everything starts, it's pretty easy. I took a shot of my setup and here it is.

I've done 3 rolls so far with 2 different type of films and the results vary quite a bit. I think I may have been a bit overenthusiastic in agitating the chemicals in one of the sessions but I'll know more after many more trials and errors.

He's wearing a 'I love mum' shirt... -.-

This last film with Delta 3200 - oh the grain!

Thankfully there are many things to shoot these days. Cyrus is growing really fast and looks different everyday.

Now there have been people who have been saying that Cyrus looks more like his mom and yes, if you look at the shots above, you can see the similarities with the nose and the chin. But if you look at him from another angle, you will see that he looks EXACTLY like me.

Huhuh! Thanks for such great hair dad!

What I've Been Doing Last Weekend

My black and white film developing kit has arrived recently and I've been practicing what I initially thought is the hardest step in the whole process - taking the film out and loading it into the tank in the dark.

All the various parts

Going into the changing bag

Magic happens... kinda like solving a rubik's cube up a cow's backside

Tadaa!

Checking to see if everything is done correctly

It's easier than I thought it would be. Now the next step will be making the toilet into a darkroom then it's on to the chemicals! I've got a couple of black and white films bought 5 years ago that can finally be put to use.

A New Family Member

... and one that doesn't need to be stored in the dry cabinet too! We welcomed the arrival of our baby boy, Cyrus, last week with much joy and relief. It's been a long journey for my wife and I, one in which we've faithfully recorded daily in a journal.

One day I will hand it over to him so he will know the ups and downs we've been through together and the many sacrifices made by his mother, but until then, I've got some words for you Cyrus. Think of it as an instruction manual for inheriting your new set of genes, though I can only speak for my part... So let's start off with the not so good news first.

1) Acne/Pimples

Yup, truly sorry about this. I wish I didn't have to pass this on to you. If you wonder why you don't see any of daddy's pics on the day you were born, it's partially due to the fact that I was the one behind the camera. I had a bad outbreak prior to your birth and didn't want that to be immortalized.

I know what you're thinking and hoping desperately for, 'Mom has such flawless skin! So maybe my skin takes after her!' Don't get your hopes up too high, it's a dominant gene. How do I know this? My mom (your grandma) has flawless skin too and she told me she's never had a single pimple, but not my dad (your grandpa). Unfortunately my sisters and I had none of the 'flawlessness' our mom had and had to go through our teenage years 'dermatologically challenged'. So you have around 13 years or so to enjoy baby smooth skin, but hey, thank God you've got pharmacists as parents eh?

2) Facial Hair (or lack of)

Nothing I can do to help you out here... I've looked at the male relatives from your mom's side and the prospects aren't that fantastic either. Clean-shaven all the way then... I don't know if it works but you may want to try finding a hairy wife? Looking at the bright side you'll save a lot of time from all the shaving that you don't need to do.

3) White Hair

Late 20's ... but it doesn't really bother me one bit.

Despite all the flaws, you'll be inheriting my wit, charm and sense of humor. That will be more than enough to see you through whatever life may throw at you. Welcome to the family son!

How To Make White Sauce

I was thinking of making a fish and broccoli dish yesterday but I needed a sauce to tie up the ingredients together.

Normally we buy those ready made sauce mix but I was feeling a bit adventurous and decided to make my own sauce. How hard can it be? I found that the basic recipe for most white sauce is


1) 2 tablespoons butter
2) 2 tablespoons flour
3) 1 cup milk
4) Whatever else you want that sauce to taste like

So first melt the butter and add in the flour...

Then the milk...

Stir till it doesn't look lumpy and add whatever you want. I added black pepper, salt, cheese and some Italian herb mix.

And the result...

Tastes better than the ready made mixes but hey, I'm biased. A few things to add, I didn't measure the ingredients exactly and just threw whatever amount that I felt right. It took only a few minutes to make and wasn't that hard at all. It's interesting and I'll probably experiment more in the future.